You Don't Owe Me Anything
by Socrates7727
Summary: Natasha was six when the Red Room took her from her parents, and she became their best. When she is fifteen, the base is stormed by American soldiers with pity in their eyes instead of fear. She, and others, are taken as refugees. Only she doesn't wake up in an orphanage. Instead, she learns what SHIELD is, and just what kind of people they employ. Rated M (later chpts) Clintasha!
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is my first time writing a Clintasha fic (more in later chapters) so I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Avengers or any of it's characters.

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Natasha woke with a jolt, immediately aware of the hospital smells and lights around her. She scrambled to remember what had happened-where she was and why this time-when she found pieces. Gunshots raining down on them. Viserov falling dead. American soldiers yelling, storming the warehouse. Red Room agents-herself included-fighting back against them with everything they had. Explosions shaking the building. Men muttering with sad eyes and pitying tones. A dart hitting her neck. Pulling it out to continue fighting. Being hit with four more. Finally hitting the floor with a thud, blacking out with the image of two American soldiers carrying away Taisia.

Looking around, eyes squinted against the harsh fluorescent lights, she realized she ws the first to wake up. She was in a hospital bed-they all were-eight along each side of the long room. She felt cold air against her inner thighs and lower back, telling her she was wearing a medical gown without having to look down. She was standing before she even realized, her bare feet cold against the tile. Her heart rate monitor began to beep furiously. A constant, shrieking _BWAH BWAH BWAH_. A few of the older girls began to stir at the noise, so she ripped it from her arm, taking the IV with it. Eyes wide, she searched the room frantically for anything she could make into a weapon. A butter knife on one of the nearby food trays was her first grab and she gripped it forcefully, with the kind of desperation that screamed fear. It was fine. This wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Another country, another agency, another lie to be told. It wasn't them she was worried about. It was the other girls.

From the closed door, she gathered they were locked in rather than handcuffed individually to their beds. This was not good. It could have been worse-she had fought more men with more guns and won before-but these weren't men with weapons. These were Red Room girls and they were the weapons. Watching carefully from where she was crouched behind her empty bed, she waited for any sign of life. If her body had run through the sedatives already, then so had theirs. It was only a matter of time.

A hitch in breathing to her left caught her attention and held it. Of course it was Vasya. The tall, slim girl was a year older than Natasha but a rank lower-something which constantly pissed her off and made her lash out at Natasha any chance she got. Her plain, unnoticeably average features scrunched in a tiny mask of what resembled pain but it was instantly gone. Vasya sat bolt upright in the bed, ignoring the hiss of monitors beside her and ripping tubes and sensors from her body just like Natasha had minutes earlier. The girl made it to her feet and stumbled, revealing a cast on her left ankle, before she caught sight of Natasha.

"Так так так. Если это не _Маленький Красный_." _Little Red_ … she hated that nickname. Little meant weak-it was an insult, and the one thing Natasha would never allow herself to be was weak. Red was a reminder of her hair-what made her stand out from the others and what made her memorable, a quality no one in the Red Room was praised for. Often times, she was jealous of Vasya and her forgettable, subtle beauty. It gave her an edge in the field. But, more often, the other girls were jealous of her and her vibrant sex appeal because it made the men of the Red Room like her. They slept with her more than any of the other girls and gave her what the others called special treatment-what she called higher standards.

"No guards here," Natasha mused, forcing her voice light despite the burn it produced in her throat. "No one to stop me from killing you." Two more girls rose at the voices and took to their feet, dancing on the balls with their arms half raised just waiting. They knew the fight wasn't theirs-not yet. Vasya threw something metal-maybe a screw or a letter opener?-with a flick of her wrist at Natasha's chest but it wasn't strong or accurate. Vasya was playing with her.

Behind her, the metal object collided with the shoulder of a sleeping girl and woke her. The blonde crept up to join the circle behind Natasha, silently picking sides. They were betting. All the girls were betting, taking their chances on loyalty. Those who bet against Vasya risked her cruel, sadistic wrath should Natasha lose. But those who bet with Vasya feared even worse. By the time the first punch was thrown, all but two girls were awake. One was the youngest, the other had had their throat slit.

It wasn't any different than training fights back at the Red Room, really. There were objects and potential weapons but both girls stayed away from them for the most part, trusting the damage they could do with their own body more than any toy. Vasya paced in half circles, staring Natasha down like prey, but she met those cold brown eyes with steel in her own and refused to be the first to blink. When Vasya did finally blink, Natasha landed a hard kick to her ribcage. She only took half a step back before recoiling for another jab at Natasha's face but the whole room had heard the snap of bones. It wasn't enough to slow her, but it was a weakness Natasha could use.

Two more solid kicks to the ribs before Natasha received a sharp, blinding punch to the temple. She was off the floor before she realized she'd gone down-the throbbing and dancing black shapes across her eyes a sign that Vasya had gotten a lucky hit. None of the girls behind her moved to pull her up or steady her-help was a sign of weakness, and this wasn't their fight-but girls on Vasya's side began to jeer and twist their faces up at her. She ignored them.

She didn't know how long they fought. It wasn't easy necessarily, especially in her condition, but it was a lulling sort of comfortable that let her mind lose awareness for time. Fighting was what she was good at. Vasya was taller and stronger, but Natasha had always been better. A natural, Viserov had called her. She allowed her focus to wane from the room, centering on Vasya and every movement of her body, until she was what could only be described as _in the zone_. Again and again she blocked and evaded, almost like a dance she'd been rehearsing for years, and she was content to stay locked in the rhythm of it until Vasya dropped. To her surprise, the girl stayed down, on her knees and rasping a wet, bloody cough. Had she punctured a lung?

It didn't matter. For the moment, Vasya was occupied and that was all it took for her supporters to riot. They saw their regime beginning to crumble and were terrified of what the Black Widow had in store for traitors like them. She didn't plan to do anything-she didn't care-but they reacted with the same visceral fear as if she'd threatened them. They surged on her, suddenly seven against one. She wasn't greatly concerned, merely annoyed and disappointed it had come to this, but she understood her situation had just significantly worsened. There were two bullet wounds in her side at least and she could feel the warm blood starting to soak the inner bandages. It had to end soon.

She kept the hoard at arms length for a good few minutes before her supporters joined the fight, either equally annoyed by the unfair sparring rules or just eager to get their share of blood on their hands. It was even matched, then, as the last girl-or at least the last one living-woke and joined the fight. The girls were younger than Natasha but they were good. They were ruthless and bloodthirsty, the kind of feral that only the Red Room could create, and she left them to fight amongst themselves. It wasn't her fight anymore.

Instead, she made her way over to where Vasya was lying on the hard floor, blood dripping from her mouth. She coughed again and spit out more blood, confirming the punctured lung. With nothing short of hatred, Vasya looked up at Natasha and spit but missed, ended up in another coughing fit. Natasha didn't fancy herself a humanitarian and she wanted Vasya to suffer. This was the girl who had terrorized her for four years, who had grinned when she saw Natasha's torn underwear, and who had made it her mission to tear Natasha down. But she didn't like watching slow deaths-it was dull, and boring, and there was too much begging. She knelt beside Vasya's still form and looked her dead in the eyes.

"I told you, Vasya. I will always win." Vasya moved to spit at her again but Natasha jammed the butterknife she had between the girl's ribs and watched her collapse before she could. She checked for a pulse after a moment, pleased to find none. Wiping the dull blade on Vasya's hospital gown, she turned to face the war raging on the other side of the room. With Vasya handled, she was beginning to feel lethargic and faint but the fight wasn't over. Her supporters had backed her, now she backed them. She crept up behind one of the girls as yelling erupted outside the door, drawing all of their attention briefly, before closing her hands around the girl's throat. She felt the muscles pulse and twitch, trying to fight for air, as the girl tried to grab at her hands but her grip was strong.

Natasha didn't mean to let go, but she faltered when she saw a flash of blue uniform through the door. Immediately, the group silenced and stopped their fighting. There was a common enemy, now. The door flew open, revealing maybe twenty guards with syringes, but they all went down in a few minutes. The girls were better than any trainer they could have ever learned from-they didn't have a chance. Again, another group was sent in, this one with M29s and SWAT uniforms, but they went almost as quickly. Whoever was outside the door seemed to realize at that exact moment that they had just provided the girls with automatic weapons-to which Natasha scrunched her eyebrows in disapproval. They locked the door again.

For a brief instant, the fighting resumed and the girl Natasha had tried to choke went for her jugular with a pen. She managed to gouge out a sizeable chunk of Natasha's shoulder before being tackled to the ground by another girl who tore at her hair and scratched at her eyes. White gas began pouring out from the vents but not a single girl changed their actions-fighting just as hard and almost appearing blind to it. Natasha was mid-kick when she first inhaled the gas. It made her kick weak. She looked to the girl she was fighting, one of her original supporters, to see if the kick had done any damage at all but the girl was on her knees, a glassy look in her eyes. It was some kind of drug, she guessed, but she refused to go easy like the others. She forced her breathing slow and shallow and searched the room briefly, her butterknife clutched tightly in one hand.

It was too strong, though, and she had a feeling they were just going to pump in more and more until they saw every girl on the floor. So she lay down, her eyes open and her breathing shallow, and waiting for them to come. It was almost ten minutes before sleep tugged at the corners of her mind but she refused, pushing herself to focus-to listen, to gauge distances, anything but give in to it. Chemicals, though, in high enough doses were hard for anyone to resist. Her eyelids fell shut and her brain fogged, listening rather than trying to see because the gas burned her eyes. She heard footsteps-ten pairs if she had to guess-and heard them moving the unconscious girls around her.

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When Natasha woke again, she was restrained. Heavily. It seemed every joint and muscle in her body was strapped to the medical chair-she couldn't even lift her head. So they'd learned.

"Hello, Miss Romanoff," a male voice greeted her in Russian, his American accent thick. It surprised her but she didn't let herself jump. She couldn't show weakness, especially not to the Americans.

"As you can see, we've taken precautionary measures. You are restrained and within a glass cell which, let me assure you, is stronger than it sounds. I will be speaking to you from the other side of this glass via a microphone. Do you understand?" She didn't give him the satisfaction of a response.

"My name is Agent Coulson. Welcome to SHIELD."

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Hope you liked it! Thanks for reading! I promise more Clintasha in later chapters! As always, please read, review, and follow!


	2. 2

AN I do not own Avengers!

Natasha didn't like Coulson. He had a wide, no-nonsense face that she could appreciate but he had soft eyes that screamed weakness. His eyes were dark but they weren't cruel--and that wasn't the kind of leadership she answered to. His calm, logical reasoning and way of talking to her made her uneasy and it made her even more so that she couldn't figure out why. He spoke to her softly in Russian at first, fluent but with an accent, and attempted to calm her.You're safe here. We won't hurt you here.But that was bullshit and they both knew it. They would slit her throat the second she wasn't useful to them.

" _Miss Romanoff_ ," he began, yet again in Russian. " _I know that you're scared.The Red Room can't reach you here. We can protect you here._ " The Red Room couldn't reach her here? She'd never heard a stupider thing in her life. The Red Room could get to her anywhere, anytime, for any reason and she could never hide from them. They knew she was here right now. They were probably watching the feeds from the cameras. If she talked, she'd be extracted and face hell.

" _I can tell that you aren't feeling talkative. The doctors recommend rest and I will be sedating you for it. Good night, Miss Romanoff._ " The pump next to her head whirred and she watched the liquid slip down the tubing to her IV with resigned disinterest. This man liked to drug her when she didn't cooperate, though she wasn't sure why. What did drugging her get? It wasn't painful or torturous. Though, maybe they knew she was agitated by not being able to control her own consciousness. Maybe it was some new form of sensory deprivation and they thought that soon enough she'd say anything to stay conscious. Little did they know.

 _Tabuny, Russia 2006_

She sat still. That was the only word to describe what she was currently doing with her body. Still. She didn't breathe more than a shallow whisper of air at a time. Her back was straight--so straight it might have actually been inverted--and her stomach was tight in little knots of anxiety. They could come in at moment. She tried not to be on edge, she didn't want to jump when they did come, but it was hard not to strain with every one of her senses for any sign of them.

The tiny click of a handle was the warning she needed.

A short, stout man shuffled into the room with a small box in his left hand. She could guess by the shape that waterboarding likely wasn't the training topic of the day but it could have been tools for nearly anything else. He set it lightly on gouged wooden table in front of her, not giving away the weight. With one hand he gestured towards her in a stay motion. Though, she wasn't sure why because she wasn't allowed to move until given permission anyways. With the other hand, he lifted out a small box of syringes.

"What is your name?" She stared at him, eyes unwavering from his forehead. That was a trick she'd learned with the other girls--to stare at their foreheads until they were so fed up and self conscious of something there that they had to check--and she liked to try it on the lower ranked men of the Red Room. He appeared impervious.

"I will not ask again, what is your name?" She stayed silent. "Very well. Soon you will scream and tell me anything just to remain conscious." Without another word of warning, he inserted the syringe into her vein--she didn't flinch, to flinch was to be weak--and she was pleasantly surprised when it didn't burn. However, the sadistic grin he gave her made her uneasy.

"Wonderful. We'll begin with 25mL of synthesized mescaline." He spoke more as if he was making notes to himself rather than to her, so she stopped maintaining eye contact and started at the wall in front of her. Slowly, the edges of the door began to blur and sharpen unpredictably. Watching it, the rectangular shape began to waver and shift into a sharp, tooth-like triangle jutting out at her, just hoping to catch her ankles. She didn't move.

"Thirty minute interval. Subject appears to feel minor effects." There was a beat of silence when she felt him step closer to her, too afraid to turn and look or break her gaze from the door. The longer she watched, the more the edge of the wooden table began to glow a brighter brown--then an orange, then a yellow--until it was a brilliant, blinding white. It angled towards her, the points always towards her. Was this what it felt to be drugged?

"What is your name?" No, she shouldn't talk--wait, nocouldn'tshe couldn't talk. Couldn't tell him anything. She stayed quiet, half because she tried to and half because her mind was still spinning over shouldn't or couldn't.

"Very well." She felt a slight pinch again in her arm but didn't have to guess what it was. With more of the drug, the light began to dance and morph like fire dripping down from the ceiling towards her feet. The wisps turned to spikes, slamming down into the floor and into her feet, though she didn't feel any pain. How could something stab into her so hard and not hurt?

The man walked into her view but it was wrong. He was suddenly full of flat surfaces and cube-like geometric shapes. His legs were triangles, balancing on tiny points. And his head was misshapen and exaggerated--a face scratched out of wax. His lips and eyes just holes where there should have been expression. The color was a horrible burnt mustard color--a face raked together out of someone's ear wax. The smell made her nauseous.

She had seen something like this before--while on assignment in a small part of France--a cubist painting, in a museum. Except this one contorted and stretched in impossible ways, reaching out for her and scaling the height of the ceiling. She blinked frantically, trying to get the distorted image out of her mind, but the blinking only made it worse. Her eyes fixed on her own feet, trying for anything that wouldn't twist and stretch unpredictably.

But her bare feet were just pale rectangles jutting up from the floor. She tried to move one--not caring anymore that she was supposed to stay still--but to her shock it dislodged and began to roll in place. Soon the entire cement floor was broken into jagged chunks that rolled and swelled like waves, carrying her foot along with it. A sea of sharp, swirling points like some death machine from a YA novel--just terrifying enough to leave her unsettled, but not realistic enough to be reality.

"What is your name?" That voice again, except this time it came from a jumbled up stack of shapes in the corner. As the silence built, they stretched, reaching for her.

"I said, what's your name?" The hands gripped her wrists but instead of dragging or hurting her, her hands released with a wetpop!and slid into the raging sea below her. "Very well." He administered a third dose.

That was when she appeared. She was small, slightly broken up but nothing compared to the man she assumed was in the corner. The little girl, maybe two or three and barely up to the height of her chair, approached with a slow, rhythmic one-two step. She was dragging a stuffed animal behind her.

"Who are you?" Natasha whispered, hoping for an explanation. The girl didn't look up. As she walked, the stuffed animal came into view--a white teddy bear. But with horror, she realized the bear's head had been torn off and blood was spilling onto the floor, dripping down against the white fur. What kind of monster tore apart a girl's teddy bear?

"What do you want?" She tried to sound calm but the little girl was just a foot away from her and had stopped suddenly. Her hair covered her face but her eyes shone up through it: bright and innocent at first but a cloudy, milky white underneath. Completely white, without a pupil or an iris. Inhumanely white.

"What are you? What do you want?" The girl stared at her but Natasha had assumed she was too young to speak. She chewed her tiny lower lip at Natasha and swallowed a chunk that broke off. Natasha wanted to puke.

"Romanoff." She jumped, shocked at the voice from the child. It was mature and clear--not a child's--but it wasmale. A deep, gruff, grating sound against her temples that chilled her blood in her veins.

"Romanoff," the girl barked at her, as if it wasn't disconcerting enough already. "You've failed us."

 _You've failed us._

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Thanks for reading! As always, please review and share!


	3. 3

AN per usual I do not own Avengers

"Morning, sleeping beauty." She jolted awake with a glare already forming on her face at the little nickname. Sleeping beauty? She was fucking drugged it wasn't her choice.

"Who are you?" She couldn't turn her head enough to see him--and it was him, the voice was too deep to be female--but she could sense where he was. Just at the edge of her blindspot, so she could see half his silhouette but nothing more. It wasn't Coulson, but that was all she knew.

At least she didn't think he was from the Red Room.

"My name is Barton, but most call me Hawkeye. And you're the Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff. How was interrogation?" She scoffed, low in her throat, before she could stop it. That was their attempt at interrogation? If anything, she was less anxious now than she was before.

"I didn't say forceful interrogation. We don't do that here." Again, she scoffed. "I know, unlikely. But it is true that, for the most part, SHIELD doesn't practice anything except the utmost guardian-angel behavior. I'm sure they do torture and intimidate but it's kept low key and isn't half as widely-accepted as it is where you came from." Deep in her gut, something told her this one was strong. He had a soft, carefree appearance but there was a weight there that Coulson hadn't had and, at least from a distance, she could respect that.

"Let me out of this chair and I'll tell you anything." It was a desperate gamble but Natasha was growing impatient. If she didn't return to the Red Room soon they'd come after her and she was willing to do almost anything to prevent that. The man chuckled.

"See, I would--I'm kind of what you might call a humanitarian--but I saw the tapes from the hospital. You're a fighter. I can respect that you're skilled, though I'm better," She snorted and felt him glare. "But they would kill me if I did. I already overstepped with you." Natasha didn't ask but she could tell he sensed her questioning eyebrow raise in his direction. He hummed and moved so she could see his face.

"I watched you fight at the hospital," His eyes were a deep, frostbitten blue and his features were hard but expressive. "You're strong. Skilled. I said you could be a good asset. They disagreed, I pulled you out anyways and now you're here: under consideration. You're welcome, by the way." Her eyes rolled on their own, before she even processed her own annoyance.

"Oh, my mistake. Thank you so much for getting me here: chained to a chair, drugged, and unpleasantly disinterested." He glared at her and for the first time since their little conversation began she felt threatened by him. Not something she couldn't handle--she could survive anything--but also not something she wanted to handle. Maybe it was time to change her approach...

"I understand why you won't untie me," she opened her eyes a little wider, playing for a childlike innocence. "But could I make a different request?" His eyes were still narrowed at her but she could see out of the corner of her eye that his posture had begun to relax. He was a bleeding heart, a do-gooder.

"What do you want?" Arching her wrist as much as she could--the right one, so it was out of his line of view--she began to wrench it against her restraints. She felt the edge of the leather bite into her skin almost immediately and repressed a smirk.

"The sedatives... My throat is so dry..." She let out a scratchy little cough for emphasis. "Could I have a sip of water?" The warm, seering scratch of the leather tearing through her skin, letting blood begin to flow from her wrist, was comforting. She felt it start to stain the white, scrub-like pants she was wearing. Outside the glass, a dull and muffled click told her Barton had unlocked her door. His breathing suddenly became close and clear--like it was in her ear.

"Open your mouth, I can't let you hold the cup." She pursed her lips obediently, eyes still as wide as she deemed necessarily, and almost sighed at the taste of water. He was slow, almost caring, as he poured small bits of water into her mouth, watched her swallow, and held out the offer of more. She drank the entire cup before wriggling her arm in discomfort, drawing his attention to it.

"You're bleeding," he paused, taking in her lack of other injuries and deducing that she hadn't fought the restraints. "Is that cuff too tight?" She shook her head, weakly from side to side like she was exhausted, and shifted to make it bleed even more.

"It's fine it's not that bad. I don't want you to get in trouble." Her pathetic concern for him only broke him down more and he shook his head like she was speaking in tongues. He reached and undid the latch--wincing when she hissed at the pain. Slowly, it dropped to the floor with blood still in the leather. With eyes closed, she felt him rinse her wrist and wrap it lightly in gauze before restraining her once again. She didn't fight--not yet, it was too soon--but she flexed her wrist as he did it. It was loose enough now that she would be able to wiggle out.

"Come here?" he stepped closer, just out of her reach, but she wasn't ready to attack him. She smiled and arched her back, pushing her chest towards him. His eyes wandered, even if he tried not to.

"What do you need?" She fluttered her eyelashes up at him, nibbling her lower lip while staring at his. His breathing hitched--she heard it instantly--but he didn't move or even blink. She wiggled her chest at him again and tucked her chin down, looking up at him. They liked that pose. If she'd been untied she would have curled in on herself more, would have pushed out her ass and her chest and unintentionally accent her legs. As it was, looking up through her eyelashes was as submissive as she could make herself look. He was drawn in regardless.

"Come here?" she repeated, biting her lower lip. "Please?" He stepped closer, letting his hand reach up to rest on the edge of her chair. Not touching her--not yet--but closer than he'd gotten earlier.

"What?" She pursed her lips at him with a little huff of air. "Did you make me come in here for nothing?" With a small pout, she wiggled to push her breasts closer to his face.

"Maybe I could make it up to you." He let her lift her head to lean towards him in a kiss and started to lean in. Suddenly, he recoiled. He stepped away and left her surprisingly cold in his absence. She whined, low in her throat, but he glared at her and she could tell the haze had worn off.

"No. Stop that." She nibbled her lip as she looked at him.

"Stop what, handsome?" She hoped the compliment would ease him back into her grasp but he shook his head, his face now a stony look of something between anger and disappointment.

"Stop trying to seduce me." He fixed his eyes on her, burning into her skull like she'd done something unforgivable. Her eyes dropped along his body, taking in the muscles and toned abdomen with displeasure--he was probably stronger than her. But her attention caught on the bulge in his pants and she smirked. So she did have the power to get to him--to be irresistible to this American man--and that meant there was still a way out.

"But why baby? We would be so good together..." He shook his head, backing up out of her line of sight and likely going for the door.

"Because you're more than a body people use for sex, Romanoff."

Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it and as always please review and follow!


	4. Chapter 4

AN I don't own Avengers or any of its characters! Don't like, don't read!

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Государственный природный заповедник Чёрные земли (The state natural reservation of the Black Lands), Russia

...

"Hello, girls." They filed in and took their seats-they same order they always did, the way they had since day one-without instruction. The girls didn't need to be told and no one wanted the punishment of having to be reminded.

"You will call me Val. I am here to begin your training as female operatives. Today, you will only observe. Tomorrow, you will replicate." She didn't wait for agreement or any questions before turning to the observation window. The one-way glass was uncovered to reveal an office scene with a woman and a man inside.

"That man is Kruski, the insurgent. Now, as you have learned, our agent could merely eliminate the threat or she could capture and interrogation. However, today you learn that pain is not the only way to get what is asked of you. Pleasure, too, can be used to manipulate."

They turned to the window yet again to watch as the agent slipped off her jacket and approached. The girls paid rapt attention, especially Natasha, because they knew they would have to replicate it exactly tomorrow. Failure to do so would result in punishment.

Natasha noted the way the agent walked-swinging her hips lightly and putting extra emphasis in her step to make her breasts bounce. She observed the way the agent twirled her hair around one finger, the way she leaned down to whisper in the man's ear, and the way she positioned her chest directly in front of his face.

"You know I have to get back to Sachet with information..." she purred, her voice low and sultry. "But maybe we could reach an agreement?" The man's grin was eager and almost blindly full of emotion. How weak, Natasha thought.

"You can't leave yet. We haven't gotten time... alone." It was disgusting-how the man's voice trilled and fell with a prepubescent kind of excitement. Natasha didn't like it, but was careful to keep that out of her face. The agent, it seemed, didn't even notice it.

The girls watched as the agent smiled and assured him there would be time later, before letting him convince her to mix business with pleasure. Natasha could feel the girls around her soaking in every flirty undertone to the agent's words, every flick of her hair, and every touch she placed on the man's thigh. They watched as she undid his belt and lowered his slacks-noting the way she looked up at him through her lashes. They watched how eagerly he pushed her to her knees and pulled his penis out of his underwear to shove into her mouth.

It never occurred to them at this was wrong. Sex wasn't bad or private, it was just another tool-so why shouldn't they learn it? Natasha felt her stomach turn when she watched how easily the man forced his penis down the agent's throat. How easily he forced himself on her.

Until, in a flash, the agent had pulled back and, with a teasing grin, laughed at the man's anger.

"I should really be getting that information Sachet wanted..." The man glared at her and tried to force her mouth back onto him but she pulled back, pursing her lips. "Really, he'll kill me if I don't." With an exasperated sigh, he grabbed a pen and took her wrist in his hand.

"Fine. Here's the key for the info you need. Now suck." He shoved himself down her throat again until she choked but the agent merely let him and turned her wrist to the window. Twelve numbers were written on her forearm, which agents in the room quickly took down and verified. With the task finished, the girls expected the agent to quickly finish the target. But she continued to let him thrust into her mouth, letting him moan and swear and pull her hair, until he spilled white liquid all over her chest.

"Are you satisfied?" she asked slowly, her voice barely more than a whisper. Around them, instructors tensed. The man let off a goofy grin and nodded.

"Very, darling. That mouth of yours..." The agent gave him a weak little smile before standing. Natasha could tell that the agreement was some kind of signal. Now that the man was satisfied, the agent stroked his chest. As she let out her breath, she jabbed her knife between two of his ribs directly into his heart. He was dead instantly.

"Always satisfy the target," Val commanded, suddenly very loud in the silent observation room. "Don't tease and then kill, you're better weapons than that." Natasha didn't nod, but then again neither did any of the other girls. They were never supposed to actually respond, not if they weren't asked a direct question, but she felt herself taking in the information. She was a better weapon than that.

* * *

When she woke up, it was with a jump and a blinding headache. This was definitely not the room she'd been in before-no white walls, no surgical equipment, no chair to strap her too-but her vision was blurry and she couldn't be sure that she was seeing reality. It looked like a bed? A small bed like from a military barrack but a bed nevertheless. And was that a sink against the wall? She didn't like that she couldn't remember anything between falling asleep there and waking up here, but she took comfort in the fact that it wasn't the red room. Chianosky wasn't going to walk in any moment now and look down at her. As plausible as the abduction was, this room wasn't their style. Besides, there were no handcuffs attached to the bed frame.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty." Again, that grating, obnoxious voice. Why was it always him that they sent in and not a trained interrogator? He, simply put, was very bad at getting information from her in any capacity.

"What, no chair? Just when the restraints were getting comfortable?" She heard him chuckle but her eyes hadn't adjusted enough to see where in the room he was hiding. Probably not hiding, she corrected, because he had enough cocky arrogance to just sit on the bed and talk to her like they were friends. But he was in the room with her, that much she knew. Which meant if worse came to worst she could use him as a shield or as a bargaining chip.

"No, no chair. I'm not surprised you don't remember, though, you took a pretty serious blow to the head. Don't glare at me though, sweetheart. As much as I would love to claim the honor, it was Brandt who clocked you with a three hole punch. Props to you, though, for getting out." She didn't ask, but left a hole in the conversation in the hope that he might fill it. "You got me to loosen the strap on your wrist, if you don't remember. Slipped out when the on call doc came to do a blood test and snapped his neck along with four guards before Brandt went at you. They're a little pissed about losing their employees, by the way. But I convinced them to give you this." She looked around the room, finally able to see enough of a blurry outline to things that it made it worth looking. There was a bed, which she was on. A sink against the far wall and a window that she doubted could open or be broken. Beside the door, there was a single chair which he was sitting in.

"They listened to you after the shit you pulled? Made it sound like you were already in some pretty big trouble just for bringing me in here with a pulse." He shrugged, though, not fazed in the least bit.

"What can I say? I make it a habit to flow in and out of different levels of probation. But they listened this time because I told them you wouldn't kill anymore of the staff if you were in here. Besides, I figured if all your energy wasn't being spent on finding a way to escape you might actually listen to me for once." Her eyebrow quirked up at him even though she couldn't quite see the smug little smirk on his face. She knew it was there. He didn't seem to ever leave home without it.

"Your bosses must not know very much about me if they listened to you." Again, his humor didn't falter, though. He just laughed and resituated himself in the chair like he planned to be there for a very long time.

"You doubt my persuasion skills?" Her silence apparently let the joke fall flat. "But no, they don't know much about you. You're a Red Room girl, obviously, and you can handle yourself but other than that? Not much. I know you, though." Interesting. She liked the way his voice went up a notch when he said the last sentence, like he was proud of it or trying to impress her. Maybe he wasn't hopeless after all?

"Do tell." He leaned forward in his chair. Even up close, his features were hard and weather like someone had beat them into place a long time ago. Even if he was an enemy, she could respect that. Didn't mean she wasn't going to kill him.

"You're Natasha Romanoff." She bit back the retort of _no shit_ that flew to the tip of her tongue. "I know a lot about you. Mostly reputation, but… I don't know if you remember-I doubt it, actually-but we've met before." Was he bluffing? Usually she didn't forget faces of anyone she considered remotely useful or threatening and he seemed to be both but she met a lot of people.

"You're going to have to be more specific." It almost seemed to make him smile that she didn't remember him. Why, though? Was there some detail he was hoping she would have forgotten?

"I don't blame you. I'm sure with your line of work you met a lot of people. Tianjin, 1994. There was a ball in honor of a prominent businessman getting married-Khan, was the last name. You killed a man there and Gerard Huntson. He was in oil." Tianjin 1994? Vaguely she remembered the assignment but she couldn't remember anything about the target. The name sounded familiar… But honestly she only remembered it because it was her first time outside of Beijing without a translator and she'd been scared shitless.

"Was he someone you knew?" She wracked her brain, searching for a connection. If he'd always been in the shadow life then maybe she'd taken a target from him or interrupted a deal? Did he hold a grudge over it for something? That was a long time to hold onto a memory like that if it didn't have some kind of significance to him.

"He was my father." Oh. "Don't look so worried, I'm not angry. I wasn't angry then, either, actually I was grateful. He wasn't a great guy-drank too much, spent his money in all the wrong places, owed the wrong people, and got handsy when he was angry. I should thank you, really. For getting rid of him, and for getting me into this line of work." She suddenly felt very uneasy. He wasn't he first family member of a target she'd met or even the first agent who fit that description but he was the first to seem to have some kind of reverence for her. It didn't seem real.

"For getting you into this line of work?" It was a long conversation especially for an interrogation, which was what this still was supposed to be, but she didn't really mind. As strange as it felt, she didn't see a reason to stop it. She was gaining information-even if it wasn't true-and wasn't giving up any of her own. He wasn't even prodding her for a reaction, just sharing. He was a shitty interrogator.

"Mhmm. My father was the bane of my existence and I didn't see any way out until you put a bullet in his head. I started to see other problems that way. And now I'm here, putting bullets in other people's brains to solve other people's problems. Pays well, though. I'm not complaining by any means." Natasha honestly wasn't sure what to do with the man-was he a man? She couldn't tell how old she was from where she was sitting-talking in front of her. Was this some kind of strategy she wasn't used to?

"Ah, well, I thought I'd introduce myself at least. The door locks behind me but I'm sure you could figure a way around that if you wanted to. Feel free to use anything in here, it can all be replaced. I do hope you don't, though. Coulson said if you stuck around he would show me whatever he keeps in that superhero lunchbox in his desk. My bet is on love letters but with him it could be anything. If you do take off, though, there are Red Room agents in a motel seventeen miles south that I'm sure would be happy to pick you up and take you back with them. Your choice." He shrugged, knocking on the door for it to be opened from the outside. "See ya tomorrow, Sleeping Beauty."

Ugh! He was so cocky! What made him think she was going to stay? Especially now that she wasn't trapped-at least not well? When there was literally nothing holding her in that room except a flimsy lock and a security guard? She started for the door already and listened through it but heard nothing. How stupid could he get, really? Thinking she would stay in that room when freedom was just inches away…

Wait.

She stopped, sitting down on the floor in front of the door to stare at it. He'd made it too easy. He'd practically dared her to try to escape, even told her what was waiting for her when she did, but why? Because he was lying. If she broke down that door there would be a thousand armed soldiers filling her body with bullets. Was that what he wanted? He'd asked her to stay-technically-but he'd been so confident that she would escape. Or at least try.

He was counting on her to try and escape.

No, she wasn't going to make it that easy for them. She crossed her legs and lay back on the cement to close her eyes. Maybe she would walk into another one of his traps some other day but not this one, not when it had been handed to her on a silver platter. Instead, she focused on her breathing and began to meditate.

* * *

Coulson watched the screen with his jaw slack. She'd started for the door but stopped and had chosen to lay down in the middle of the floor? And, from the looks of it, take a nap?

"How, in the name of God, did you manage to do that?" Behind him, Clint laughed. But he couldn't tear his eyes from the screens. The window was plexiglass but not indestructible, she could have thrown the chair through it easily and used the sheets to climb down prison break style. The door was locked, like he'd told her, but it was just a basic pin code. She'd probably cracked worse locks when she was six!

And, outside the door, stood Bart. The security guard. Bart was alone, armed with only a taser probably wasn't even fully charged, and munching on a bag of mini donuts. She could have torn through him like he was made of air. But she stayed in the room, lying on the cement, taking a damn nap.

"Clint, what the hell? How did you do that?" He knew how, he'd heard the whole conversation and watched every word pop up on the transcript. All he'd done was tell her the truth. But she couldn't possibly be staying because she wanted to, that was out of the question.

"I told you I didn't need restraints to keep her from hurting people." He gaped, still stuck in shock and disbelief. One of the most dangerous assassins in the world was lying willingly in a poorly secured room taking a nap because of Clint.

"How did you know that would work?" Beside him now, Clint shrugged and grabbed one of the slices of pizza from the box on the desk.

"Because it would have worked on me."

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Thanks for reading! As always, please review/favorite/follow and share! Positive reviews make me happy and make me want to update more often!


	5. Chapter 5

AN I don't own Avengers/Marvel of and of its characters! Sexual triggers and mentions of noncon, definitely M. Enjoy!

* * *

Clint woke with a start. Natasha was there, curling into his body like she didn't belong anywhere else. She smiled when she saw that his eyes were open.

"Natasha? What the fuck-how did you get in here? How did you get _out_?!" She just smiled, running her hand up his stomach to his chest and back down again.

"I was able to talk some sense into Bart. He wasn't going to just let me out-and I'm being a good girl, so I wasn't going to fight him-but he agreed to let me come see you." Above her, the man's mouth fell open in shock. He was beautiful, she realized, in an American way that she could appreciate, even if he wasn't really her type. He was… handsome, that was the word. His features were strong and defined like they'd been chiseled with war and the way the shadows played across his face made him seem otherworldly. His frostbitten eyes reminded her of something she couldn't quite place. He was quite attractive, actually. But now wasn't the time.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She made the smile stay on her lips, and rolled to press her body against his. With one hand she cupped his face. With the other, she moved much lower and cupped the obvious bulge in his boxers, making him moan. This was good. This was easy, this was what she was good at, this was what she did. _You're not just a body people use for sex, Romanoff_. Well, she was calling bullshit. He was just jealous, angry that other men got to claim her body when he didn't just because of some moral compass. But she was ready to smash that compass.

"Oh, don't sound so shocked. You knew we had a…. _Connection_." She didn't give him a chance to say anything to that-he was too good at arguing-she just pressed their lips together. She was good at kissing, and she knew that. She could read a situation and a target and kiss with just the right amount of force or accuracy to make him putty in her hands. With Clint, she was gentle, but not hesitant. He was still too much of a boyscout to want to take her without her consent, but that only meant he took a little more convincing.

She ran her tongue along his lower lip. He shuddered and immediately granted her access, but she moved her attention again to below his waist where she slipped into his boxers. She cupped him at first, and then began stroking him. He let out a moan into her mouth and she had to smile because this was easy-this was what she was good at. But just as quickly, he had a hand on her shoulder and was pushing her away.

"Natasha, stop." She pulled away with a little pout. He wanted her, she could see that very clearly and she knew she was attractive. But that pesky moral compass was getting in the way… He didn't think she wanted it. The hand still pushing her off of him was gentle and not at all controlling-he didn't really want her to leave-and she relaxed into his body before he could say anything else. She her hips into him and shook his hand off. He was pushing her for it, making her prove that she wanted this so he could have a clear conscious about it later, so she pushed back. She proved it. One hand in his hair, the other grabbing his ass, she kissed him again making her touch even more confident. But he pushed her away again.

"Nat, stop that." Now, she was confused. He wanted her, clearly, and his moral compass had been appeased so why the hell wasn't he jumping at the chance to fuck her? Even if he had a girlfriend or a wife or something, she'd never met a man who turned down an affair when it was offered to them, no matter when or where. Especially not with a nameless foreign girl they could make disappear with a snap of their fingers. Who the hell was this guy?

"But baby…" She made her voice low and sultry, dragging out the e sound at the end as she trailed her hand back down to his dick. He stifled a moan in her hair, almost collapsing into her at the touch. But he didn't kiss her. Maybe he didn't like kissing, was that her mistake? She switched tactics and attached her mouth to his chest, working down to his waistband before he tangled a hand in her hair and made her still.

"What's the matter, baby?" He groaned at her tone, and when she licked him through his boxers, but didn't let go of her hair.

"No, stop." She licked again, making him shudder, but he held firm. "I said no, Natasha." Did he really not want her? His dick clearly did but if his precious little boyscout code wasn't being violated then why did he keep pushing her away? Was she not his type?

"But I can do anything, baby, anything you want…" She pressed a kiss just above his waistband. "Just say the word, anything you want. I'm good at it too, I can make you feel so good baby you'll forget whatever is putting that frown on your face. Such beautiful lips… I just want to make them smile, baby." He was still, not pushing her away any further, so she took that as an invitation and moved back to suck and lick at his stomach, leaving little red marks in her wake. He shivered and arched into her, but he stayed still. He was too still. She stopped, looking up at him through her lashes the way she knew looked sexiest. Why was he so still? Was he holding his body so rigid because he wanted her to hold him down?

"Baby?" He was staring at the wall, frozen, but her voice startled him into looking at her.

He was crying.

"Oh, baby, don't cry. Tell me what will make you feel good." She reached up and kissed his cheeks where the tears had stained them, just for a moment, but he wouldn't look at her. She removed her hand from his dick for a second, trailing it up to wrap around his waist instead, but he wouldn't look at her.

 _It's because you're a whore_.

She was, but he didn't know that yet. Besides, most men just pushed her around more or were more rough with her when they found out. They didn't cry. Why the fuck was he crying?!

"Come on, baby, just kiss me. Fuck me. You know it will make you feel better…" But he just sighed. Those ice blue eyes were so much sadder when they were filled with tears, she realized. They looked like pools of everything that had ever gone wrong in the world, welling up and just waiting to shatter anyone who looked into them. She swallowed hard and moved her hand back to his inner thigh.

"Please, baby, please just fuck me." She made her voice dip on the words, like she was begging. She was begging, that wasn't fake, but it made the sadness worse not better. Why did it hurt so much so look at that in his eyes!? She didn't like it. The longer she stayed in that room, the less she was starting to like him.

She thought he was going to sit there, still as a statue and crying, for hours. Honestly, she didn't expect him to ever move from that position again, even when she went back to playfully stroking him through his boxers. He was hard, but his face didn't change. Until, suddenly, his hands were on her face, cupping her cheeks and lifting her head to look up into his eyes. She swallowed hard again but let him. It was the first time he'd reached out to her at all and if this was what it took to get to him then she would do it. She waited, just waiting for his hands to guide her head back to his crotch or to press their lips together again. But he just sat there, holding her face in his hands. Crying.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispered. The words tumbled out over his lips and shattered against her skin like shards of glass, slicing her open. She didn't react, though, she just nuzzled closer. The longer he sat there like that, the more she nuzzled into his palm and then carefully kissed it. Carefully, like he would hit her without any warning. With her eyes still locked on his, she parted her lips and sucked his pinky into her mouth, running her tongue around it in circles. His breath caught, but he stayed still. She sucked it a little harder, bobbing her head as much as his hands would allow to imitate a blow job, but he stayed still.

"Natasha, why are you doing this?" Ah, so it was that damn moral compass rearing its ugly head again. She swore internally. But, externally, she sucked a second finger into her mouth and gently scraped them with her teeth. He moaned, but stayed still. He was waiting for her to answer, she realized, and she let go of his fingers with a wet pop.

"I want to make you happy, baby." Her gut churned but she pushed it out of her mind. She'd gotten used to this years ago but it'd been a long time since someone had pushed her this hard, made her question it this much. The way he was looking at her made her feel… broken. Like that panic in her chest at his obvious displeasure wasn't natural, or like turning everything he said into some kind of opening to touch him wasn't normal. It wasn't normal, but it was her normal. So why did she feel like it was wrong the longer she looked at him?

"What's the matter, baby? You don't want me?" Her voice shook a little over the last few words and that wasn't intentional-but she tried to make it look like it was. He clearly wanted her, or at least his body did. But he was refusing her. If she couldn't satisfy him then how the hell was she supposed to get out of this place?! She needed him to sleep with her, to fuck her, to be pleased with her. But he stayed still.

Instead, those four words seemed to shatter him even more. He was still crying, holding her face in his hands and looking at her like he was saddened by what she was. But he was the one who said he knew her, said he understood. So why was he making this so difficult? It wasn't shameful, it wasn't horrible. It was a physical transaction-she pleased him sexually, he warmed up to her, and then she found a weakness to get out. Why wouldn't he just let her?!

"Natasha, sweetheart, please stop." The please made her hesitate, though she wasn't proud of it.

"What, you don't want me?" Again, her voice trembled over that question but he just sighed.

"Of course I do! I mean _God_ you're so… Of course I want you, what man wouldn't? But not like this." Wait, what? The hell did he mean 'not like this'? Did he want her to fuck him or something?

"Oh, I get it. If you've got a dildo then I've got no complain-"

"No! God, Natasha no." She wanted to cry; he was looking at her like she didn't understand how broken she was. "I meant not like this. Not here, not now, and not for this reason. Natasha…" The way he said her name made her slump into his hands. He looked at her… he made her feel so fucking shameful just for doing her job because he looked at her like she was some perverted, broken little girl. Like he wanted to take care of her, or something. Who gave him the right to look at her like that!? He didn't know her. He didn't give a damn.

She turned her face to kiss his palm again but he pulled it away so fast she almost didn't touch it. Immediately, she flinched into the other hand at the absence. Sudden absence of a hand meant a strike was coming, and she knew it was best just to take it. So she flinched away from it, but didn't fight. He was mad that she did that, she knew that, but a part of her was glad he was going to hit her. This was what she was used to, what she could handle.

But he didn't touch her. When she looked up for his hand, surprised, it was limp at his side like he'd lost all feeling or control of it. What the hell? His face was twisted into a mask of hurt but she didn't understand. She hadn't done anything to him. But he still looked like he wanted to scream or maybe throw up and she wasn't sure which made her more uncomfortable. Why was he so upset?

"Natasha…" Her name with tears in it from his mouth was worse than a slap in the face. "Natasha, please. Just please sit up and let me talk to you for a second." She obeyed before he even finished talking. He wasn't normal. Normal meant beating her a bit or fucking her or yelling and storming away-that was normal, she could handle normal. But he was not normal and she had no fucking clue what he was doing, which terrified her. She was terrified to make him angry now. Now that he was unpredictable.

"Natasha," He started to reach out to take her hand but stopped himself. "Natasha, please know that I will never hurt you. I _hate_ the way you just flinched away from me-"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I won't do it again please let me make it up to you I'm sorry-" He stopped her with a single finger over her lips. He was crying again, and she wanted to apologize for that too. How the hell did she keep fucking this up!? She was supposed to be good at this!

"No, no not like that. Please, Nat, don't apologize for anything. I didn't it negatively, I didn't mean to stop doing it or apologize, I meant that I hate the reason behind it. I hate that you're used to people hitting you. I hate that you think I would hit you, and for no reason. But I'm not mad, okay? Please, stop looking so fucking terrified I'm not going to hurt you." She was crying. She had forced herself to cry thousands of times, for covers and because the situation called for it or even during torture. But she'd never cried because of words. Especially not from a man she barely knew, and who barely knew her. He didn't know that, though, and he didn't need to so she lied and told herself it was because he need to see vulnerability from her.

"Okay, I'm sorry." He tensed like he was going to say something but she flinched again and he just sighed. Right, she wasn't supposed to apologize. What kind of man didn't want her to apologize, though? Usually, they took pleasure in forcing her to apologize, often from the floor or with a cock in her mouth, and usually for something that wasn't even her fault. But he was telling her not to apologize?

"Nat, I'm not gonna hurt you. I know you don't believe me and that's fine, you have every right now to, but I'm gonna prove it to you. This isn't like the Red Room. I'm not just fuck you or hurt you because I feel like it-or for any reason, actually." She frowned. "I know you don't believe me. I know, it's okay. I have to earn that kind of trust from you and that's fine, I don't mind earning it. But know that I'm going to. I'm gonna prove to you that this different, that you can live- _actually live_ -here and maybe even be happy. I'm gonna prove it."

She believed him. Those sad, tear-blue eyes were hard to argue with but she believed him even without looking into his eyes. People had said they would earn her trust before, though. She shook off those pesky emotions and resettled herself in her skin. People lied. He was lying, or at least he could be, and she had to remember that. People were liars, even pretty ones.

"I'm gonna prove it, Natasha."

Only time would tell.

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Thanks for reading! Please review/comment/share it means the world to me and makes me want to write a lot more!


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